Losing a generation of artistic talent?

22 November 2010

The heads of some of Britain's most prestigious arts institutions have warned that government plans to slash funding for teaching humanities subjects could drive future designers, artists and musicians overseas and put vital collaborations between science and the arts at risk.

Deep cuts to teaching budgets for the arts, coupled with proposals to raise tuition fees for undergraduates to as much as £9,000 a year, have also prompted fears that art colleges could become the preserve of a social elite.
In response, a page-long article in The Guardian, 15 November, cites Paul Thompson, rector of the Royal College of Art, accusing the British government of "swinging a sledgehammer" into arts teaching, putting the supply of talent for the creative industries at risk.
Barry Ife, principal of the Guidhall school of music and drama, fears that higher costs of education will particularly affect students' opportunities to pursue graduate studies: "It's one thing for undergraduates to go out with GBP 20,000 of debt, quite another thing to go out with 50-60,000. The real concern is not so much that we're not going to have an undergraduate population, it's what happens to the postgraudate population. It's from that group that the really talented artists will emerge."